As a manager, especially in charge of employees who work in shifts, getting employees to show up to work on time can be a challenge. For businesses with chronic tardiness and absenteeism, it's no surprise these issues can lead to loss of revenue.
The Centers for Disease Control found that in 2015, productivity losses due to absenteeism at work cost companies around the U.S. $225 billion.
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So how can employers reduce occurrences of tardiness or absenteeism? Turn to the smartphone. These days, it's more common for people to own smartphones than not, and it is turning into a useful tool to manage schedules.
A report by Ximble, a software company focused on employee scheduling and attendance, says when an employee uses alerts on their phone to remind them of a shift they were 21 percent less likely to be late and 16 percent less likely to miss their shift altogether.
Ximble's programs offer alerts for employees, and data from the 400 companies and 6,500 employees using this service was used for the study.
For those employees utilizing alerts, there was improvement in their tardiness. Those using their phones to remind them of their shift were on average late 96 minutes over two years, but those who didn't set reminders were late to work on average 121 minutes in the same time frame.
The data was similar for those completely missing a shift. Those who set a reminder on their phone missed 21 shifts over two years, and those who didn't missed around 25 shifts.
An interesting comparison in the report shows the tardiness of American employees using Ximble technology compared to Australian workers. U.S. employees were on average late more than 100 minutes, but in Australia, it was 72 minutes.
Not only is absenteeism and tardiness harmful for productivity, it also affects wages for the employees showing up late. U.S. employees missing shifts lost on average $2,146 from their paychecks, and those showing up late missed out on $926 on their paycheck.
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